Review: High-DPI Toshiba’s Kirabook takes on the Retina MacBook Pro

$1600 for a Toshiba laptop? I don't care what specs it has, Toshiba - like HTC - don't support their products after a couple of months. I've had numerous friends in college own Toshiba laptops and they couldn't find drivers when they tried to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. Not to mention their support is lacking.

My experience has been the opposite. I have a Toshiba laptop I bought in 2008 that still gets driver updates. Toshiba even created a Windows 7 upgrade utility that downloaded and installed all drivers and software fully automatically. I was impressed.

It's possible that they may not offer great support on their cheapest products (I wouldn't know; I avoid the cheap models), but they have really taken care of me with my higher-end 2008 model.

Looks like a good "first shot" at a premium laptop (not really a first shot considering Toshiba's heritage, but true considering their recent history). But it's ruined by (in order of importance for me):-Sandy Bridge-No support for real external monitors (HDMI-only)-Bottom-facing fan - this just has me shaking my head in disbelief when I think about using this on my sofa or bed-Bottom-facing speakers-Overly glossy screen

If they want to compete with Apple, including on price, then they need to take a more serious look at what Apple has on offer. Apple gives you two Thunderbolt/Mini-DP ports plus an HDMI, fan and speaker positioning that makes sense, an all-metal case and a low-reflectivity screen. The only thing this machine has going for it in comparison is the touchscreen.

I haven't used a rMBP, but I've used a 3840x2400 screen with pixel doubling and it looked fine as a 1920x1200 screen (actually it looked really good). That was nearly a decade ago with Windows XP, so the entire screen had a consistent resolution. Could that be what makes the difference?

Do you know how mipmapping works in 3D games? It looks like that. It’s not "sharp" pixel doubling, it’s texture upscaling. This can work okay for photos, but things like forum smileys or pixel art, not so much. However, if you create websites, there are CSS flags that help force sharpness (to a degree).

Edit: For those interested, you can check out QuickRes on a retina MacBook, if available, and check out 1920x1200—then draw up a solid red or green rectangle in a drawing app and see how the graphics card seems to be adding compression artifacts around the edges. I _think_ that is the main reason why "retina" 1920x1200 is rendered at 3840x2400 and scaled down to 50%. It’s all done on the GPU, perhaps CPU upscaling of 1920x1200 to 2880x1800 would be just too slow.

Edit2: My guess with the "not doubling" is RAM considerations; bilinear or trilinear upscaling of images can happen on the fly, while doubling pixels could mean (depending on how the GPUs/GPU drivers handle stuff) that you need to store 4 times the pixels per image.

rMBP's have 4 times the pixels. so for every pixel in a regular laptop, rMBP has 4. when a program is not optimized for rMBP it only activates one out of the four pixels. the icon/text will occupy the same space as regular screens but the image won't look sharp because of the 3 unused pixels for every used one!

That's not accurate. All four pixels are used, they're just the same color and so things look blocky compared to other parts of the screen.

You'd think that if 1 pixel was replaced with 4 in the same exact amount of space then it would be able to show images at the 'old', lower resolution and it'd look identical to regular 'non-retina' displays. Nope. Since both with regular 1440x900 AND the 2880x1800 are both exactly 15.4", it doesn't quite make sense to me...

I wonder if it's just text down-scaling to lower resolutions isn't 'mature' enough to look the same. :\

I think Apple is actually antialiasing non-Retina images while doubling their pixel dimensions. This would explain their fuzziness; if they simply subtituted four pixels where one was before, I think it would look blocky but sharp. I guess they think smooth but fuzzy looks better.

There is 90% chance that you'll have serious troubles installing ubuntu on the hardware. That doesn't mean that you can't try.

On the desktop scaling matter, I have 27" 2560x1440 monitor at work and I use Kubuntu with desktop rescaling set to around 160% (bad eyesight). Everything KDE looks surprisingly good. However, some programs, as you've noted in your article, don't respond well to rescaling. For them you'll have to setup everything manually.

"Otherwise they'll actually look a bit worse on a high-density display than they would on a lesser one."

I'm not sure I'm clear on why un-optimised images / text would look worse. Surely if they are pixel-doubled (what I assume is happening, is this my folly?) but occupy the same physical space on screen, they will look identical to images/text on a non high-DPI monitor?

Normally, text uses sub-pixel rendering: using the RGB elements of the edge pixels to smooth the shape. But you can't pixel-double sub-pixel rendering -- or at least it cannot be done simply. So non-Retina apps on non-Retina displays are sub-pixel; Retina apps on Retina displays are presumably sub-pixel too, not that you can necessarily tell since the pixels are so small; but non-Retina apps on Retina-displays switch to full-pixel anti-aliasing. Those full pixels are then doubled.

So non-Retina images and icons look basically the same doubled, but text looks worse.

I'm curious for whom the SD card readers are targeted? I have one in the Thinkpad, and I've never used it.

Over on the Nexus 7 update thread there are a band of users promising to besiege Google with crossbows and battering rams if the next Nexus devices don't have SD card slits.

I understand having an SD slot on a tablet, since they typically have limited storage (and usually a huge price premium to go from 16GB->64GB). I guess I understand the convenience of having a slot vs. not having one in a laptop, but I'm surprised manufacturers haven't killed it in the name of lighter & cheaper.

I wonder if manually changing the scaling level from 165% to 200% would solve some of the scaling issues.

Also playing with the "XP style scaling" option might help.

Probably not; most Windows applications get worse the higher you set the scaling setting-- 125% generally works well; things start breaking at 150% and go downhill from there (the highest the Windows scaling control panel will let you go is 150%, so that's the highest people test).

GDI and GDI+ (the legacy graphics APIs used on Windows) really weren't designed for resolution-independence: if you want it, you need to use WPF or Direct2D (or build a Metro app). Apple really got lucky with OSX... when they adopted what used to be NeXTSTEP as the foundation for OSX, they also happened to adopt a system that had been designed from the ground-up for resolution independence. Microsoft doesn't have that luxury, so they're stuck trying to convince developers to migrate over to the new APIs to get proper resolution-independence. Which is probably a losing battle, considering the volume of legacy code out there...

Do you know how mipmapping works in 3D games? It looks like that. It’s not "sharp" pixel doubling, it’s texture upscaling. This can work okay for photos, but things like forum smileys or pixel art, not so much. However, if you create websites, there are CSS flags that help force sharpness (to a degree).

It looks like there are different ways OS X ends up doing the doubling. For example this news item on the retina update to Adobe Photoshop CS6 shows a side by side comparison of the way the software displays on a retina screen before and after the update. The 'before' side clearly shows exact pixel doubling (i.e., like 'nearest-neighbor')

I wonder if manually changing the scaling level from 165% to 200% would solve some of the scaling issues.

Also playing with the "XP style scaling" option might help.

Probably not; most Windows applications get worse the higher you set the scaling setting-- 125% generally works well; things start breaking at 150% and go downhill from there (the highest the Windows scaling control panel will let you go is 150%, so that's the highest people test).

GDI and GDI+ (the legacy graphics APIs used on Windows) really weren't designed for resolution-independence: if you want it, you need to use WPF or Direct2D (or build a Metro app). Apple really got lucky with OSX... when they adopted what used to be NeXTSTEP as the foundation for OSX, they also happened to adopt a system that had been designed from the ground-up for resolution independence. Microsoft doesn't have that luxury, so they're stuck trying to convince developers to migrate over to the new APIs to get proper resolution-independence. Which is probably a losing battle, considering the volume of legacy code out there...

Considering Apple's history with print, I don't think adopting DisplayPDF was luck.

Keep in mind that Adobe does their own drawing magic and shenanigans, that often has little to do with OS X. Best evidence for that is how their apps are often invisible to mouse hit testing or get moved to the very "back" of the window manager’s depth (meaning all other windows overlap it) even if technically you only switched to one other app (meaning only that one app should be in front of Adobe apps, not ever other open app as well). So using Adobe to judge or analize OS X scaling and UI drawing (or behavior) seldom works.

The pixel doubling actually only "works fo realz" if you run at a "retina" 1440x900, otherwise it’s mostly just a blurry mess when apps aren’t optimized… Since retina is a system-level feature, you can have old apps displaying crisp text and UI elements, too, even though most of their custom UI image assets will look blurry or pixelated. For simple apps that only use the widgets Cocoa provides, it’s a "magic" upgrade, however.

Considering Apple's history with print, I don't think adopting DisplayPDF was luck.

I don’t think that has as much to do with as it has with the simple fact that NextStep was simply that far ahead of every other system. It’s no coincidence that Cocoa still works as an API/set of frameworks and that Apple doesn’t feel the need to keep reinventing the wheel all the time, imo.

Considering Apple's history with print, I don't think adopting DisplayPDF was luck.

I don’t think that has as much to do with as it has with the simple fact that NextStep was simply that far ahead of every other system. It’s no coincidence that Cocoa still works as an API/set of frameworks and that Apple doesn’t feel the need to keep reinventing the wheel all the time, imo.

While what you say is true, it is also true that DisplayPS was in fact chosen for it's print capabilities, and inherited the same capabilities when OS X used DisplayPDF later.

Considering Apple's history with print, I don't think adopting DisplayPDF was luck.

I don’t think that has as much to do with as it has with the simple fact that NextStep was simply that far ahead of every other system. It’s no coincidence that Cocoa still works as an API/set of frameworks and that Apple doesn’t feel the need to keep reinventing the wheel all the time, imo.

While what you say is true, it is also true that DisplayPS was in fact chosen for it's print capabilities, and inherited the same capabilities when OS X used DisplayPDF later.

Sure, it just happened at NeXT. They were smart enough to recognize pixels are just points and that it makes sense to unify how to deal with them—smart move, considering how far back it was made.

Really, how so? I realize you were trying to provide some level of balance by claiming things you like and don't like about one company or another. It's probably more accurate to suggest that YOU like the Window 7 UI better.

The review should highlight the difference in screen aspect ratios between this and a Retina MacBook Pro. Ultrabooks need all the vertical space they can muster once the text is scaled up to a comfortable size.

I'm curious for whom the SD card readers are targeted? I have one in the Thinkpad, and I've never used it.

Over on the Nexus 7 update thread there are a band of users promising to besiege Google with crossbows and battering rams if the next Nexus devices don't have SD card slits.

More like there are many of us who are resigned to the fact that the Nexus line of products won't ever have SD slots, and while it is a deal breaker for only some of us, on the off chance Google is listening, we're still making noise about it. Having said that, there's a big difference bet. a tablet w/8~32 GB of built in storage and an ultrabook w/a 250 GB SSD. I'll still take an SD slot (to answer the OP, because it gives me more options), but it'd no longer be a deal breaker.

Really, how so? I realize you were trying to provide some level of balance by claiming things you like and don't like about one company or another. It's probably more accurate to suggest that YOU like the Window 7 UI better.

oh please. If you argue about pretty much anything that is not quantifiably measurable an amount of subjectivity is implied. But yes I would argue Windows7 actually is better in many regards and I like it better as well.

It looks really polished and is very smooth, the task bar is taking away less screen real estate then the OSX startbar and has pretty much the same functionality now when you pin applications. It is just as smooth or smoother (on comparable hardware) and it is esp. easier to see all the windows for an application now. (just click on the application vs. the stupid long press in OSX ). That's esp. important because I need to use it so often.

Also head and shoulders above OSX is the ability for apps to pin context menu tasks to an app in the task bar. For example in WinSCP or putty you can right-click an app and either open up a previous connection or create a new one. With one click. Very impressive. Again something you do millions of times and it just feels so natural after a while and you miss it when not having it.

The whole UI also feels more modern ( I love OSX but it is a bit old now with the red green yellow round buttons etc. ) And pretty much all new additions to OSX are underwhelming like the iPad style app launcher ( seriously that simplistic thing is a much hyped feature? ) And don't get me started on the smart folders you put on the OSX task bar that do not even allow you to right-click delete a file. Why do they even exist?

Doesn't mean that OSX is bad and it still has some areas where it excels ( consistency in the settings menus, Compose, etc. ) But its definitely not the clearly better alternative it was in Vista times. (Because contrary to some opinion on this forum Vista was the devil and it cannot be overstated how different Win7 is. They should have sainted the guy who was responsible for it instead of moving him out of the company even if he was a bit of an asshole.

Until Apple gets more than 10% market share, I'm pretty sure they aren't going to "force" Microsoft's hand at anything. If Microsoft can support Retina DPI resolutions without forcing a lot of developers to port to a new API, then they should do so. If not, then they shouldn't.

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Which is the reason for the shitty scaling support and 768p notebooks.

The thing is, 768p notebooks are the mass market. 90% of consumers won't pay even a couple hundred dollars more for a "Retina" screen, let alone $1,300 more. I bet the majority would be hard pressed to even differentiate between a Retina vs non-Retina screen.

Keep in mind that Adobe does their own drawing magic and shenanigans, that often has little to do with OS X.

But the scaling still isn't done by Adobe's program; OS X is taking what Photoshop draws and pixel doubling it. How exactly OS X does the scaling appears to depend on how the original drawing is done. Even in that screen-shot I linked to to show the blurry scaling there's also some pixelated scaling (in the image the application is displaying at the lower right).

Sure, it just happened at NeXT. They were smart enough to recognize pixels are just points and that it makes sense to unify how to deal with them—smart move, considering how far back it was made.

It looks smart now but do you remember the gnashing of teeth when OS X came out or when the original version of Safari for Windows used Apple's font rendering instead of Microsoft's? People complained that it looked like their screens were smeared in vaseline, the specific cause being that Apple had abandoned aggressive font hinting, instead ensuring that accurate metrics are represented on screen.

If you don't try to fit glyphs to the screen pixels then you end up having to do things like draw letters that are 12.8 pixels wide, starting at 0.67 pixels, and the edges inevitably end up looking a bit soft. If you do fit then, say, you round that to 13 pixels starting at 1. Then the next glyph starts at position 14 instead of 13.47. Those errors accumulate across the line and you can no longer reliably line up the non-text elements with the text.

The first problem was largely solved by Trinitrons and LCDs and subpixel rendering (well, other than in Safari-for-Windows where Apple used the much better solution of just trusting the OS to draw text), and is a complete non-issue on high DPI screens.

The second problem is the reason that automatic scaling isn't something the GDI has just always magically done, and why so many applications fail to render correctly if you turn up the display scaling. All Microsoft has been able to do is commission custom fonts like Calibri that are designed from the ground up around the inherited deficiencies of their font subsystem (and, indeed, the various other typographical transgressions of Word — e.g. pair kerning remains disabled by default, again for legacy reasons).

Until Apple gets more than 10% market share, I'm pretty sure they aren't going to "force" Microsoft's hand at anything.

You think selling a dozen or so million Retina iPads in a quarter doesn't count? You seem to believe that end users won't notice the Retina display on the iPad, or even the hundred million or so smartphones including the iPhone 4, 4S, 5, and similar Android phones, with similar displays.

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If Microsoft can support Retina DPI resolutions without forcing a lot of developers to port to a new API, then they should do so. If not, then they shouldn't.

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Which is the reason for the shitty scaling support and 768p notebooks.

The thing is, 768p notebooks are the mass market. 90% of consumers won't pay even a couple hundred dollars more for a "Retina" screen, let alone $1,300 more. I bet the majority would be hard pressed to even differentiate between a Retina vs non-Retina screen.

Except a significant portion of the population (well above your 10%!) use Retina style displays on their tablets and phones. In the last quarter only about 86m or so PCs were sold; Apple sold about 70m or so Retina displays, Samsung sold another 30m or so, HTC and Sony and everyone else another 30m or so, for a good 200% of the computing public using Retina displays except on the PC side.

But the scaling still isn't done by Adobe's program; OS X is taking what Photoshop draws and pixel doubling it. How exactly OS X does the scaling appears to depend on how the original drawing is done. Even in that screen-shot I linked to to show the blurry scaling there's also some pixelated scaling (in the image the application is displaying at the lower right).

I'm pretty sure the text looks bad because, as pointed out above, it doesn't get to use subpixel rendering if it's going to be pixel quadrupled. The bilinear filtering on the image on the right probably is based on the advance knowledge that an image is being presented — unlike where you've got text, the OS has no way of knowing whether what it's displaying is a synthesised image with all original detail retained (like a screenshot) or a discrete sampling of a continuous original (like a photograph). Probably it guesses that the latter is more likely. After that, bilinear filtering is the best general purpose thing you can do on a GPU in a reasonable amount of time.

oh please. If you argue about pretty much anything that is not quantifiably measurable an amount of subjectivity is implied. But yes I would argue Windows7 actually is better in many regards and I like it better as well.

It looks really polished and is very smooth, the task bar is taking away less screen real estate then the OSX startbar and has pretty much the same functionality now when you pin applications. It is just as smooth or smoother (on comparable hardware) and it is esp. easier to see all the windows for an application now. (just click on the application vs. the stupid long press in OSX ). That's esp. important because I need to use it so often.

Also head and shoulders above OSX is the ability for apps to pin context menu tasks to an app in the task bar. For example in WinSCP or putty you can right-click an app and either open up a previous connection or create a new one. With one click. Very impressive. Again something you do millions of times and it just feels so natural after a while and you miss it when not having it.

The whole UI also feels more modern ( I love OSX but it is a bit old now with the red green yellow round buttons etc. ) And pretty much all new additions to OSX are underwhelming like the iPad style app launcher ( seriously that simplistic thing is a much hyped feature? ) And don't get me started on the smart folders you put on the OSX task bar that do not even allow you to right-click delete a file. Why do they even exist?

Most of these are debatable (e.g., the Dock can be smaller, but should it be smaller by default?, Exposé can be configured to use, say, a mouse button to be faster than press-and-hold on the Dock, but should being faster really be the default?). But on one you are simply incorrect; Apps in the Dock can provide custom Dock menu items. This has always been possible for running apps, but a few years ago they added an API to enable it for non-running applications as well.

This notebook has some promising features, but then has some aspects to it which make me just stop considering it like chiclet keyboad.

My six year old T43 is kind of on its last legs, still works fine, but i want a replacement. I can't find a notebook that emulates its design goals, they're all trying to be apple, but trying to be netbooks (in certain aspects), or trying to be plastic craptastic devices, none of them are doing a decent laptop that ticks every box and I would like to get.

I'm really dirty with lenovo for abandoning the keyboard layout of old, and i wish notebook manufacturers would at least consider 16:10 ratio displays. I can't believe that many of them are still using the ghastly 1366x768 (shudders) resolution.

T430/T530 keyboard is very comfortable and you can choose a screen that is 1600x900 or 1920x1080(T530). A brilliant, solid yet portable machine. What is there to be dirty about?